The second part of the position is established by some of the most familiar facts of experience.

We know and feel that however certain all events are to the omniscient knowledge of the Most High, many of them are entirely beyond the reach of our limited foresight; and this because they are either dependent on individual causes which are unknown to us, or on a combination of various causes, too complex to admit of any rational computation in regard to their results.
The "calculation of chances" has been reduced to something like scientific accuracy;[218] and it has been applied, with beneficial effect, to the insurance of life and property on land and at sea.

Even the casual events of human history may be said, in a certain sense, to be governed by fixed laws.

The _aggregate result_ in such cases may be tolerably certain, while the _individual cases_ are very much the reverse; and hence human wisdom, proceeding on a well-ascertained body of _statistics_, may construct a scheme for securing some against the evils to which they would otherwise have been liable, by means of the sacrifices of others, who would not have been in fact, although they might have been, for ought they know, liable to the same.

But what is this, if it be not a practical acknowledgement of the uncertainty in which all are placed in regard to some of the most important interests of the present life?
or how can it be said that chance or accident is altogether, and in every sense, exploded, when large bodies of men are found to combine, and that, too, at a considerable personal sacrifice, for the express purpose of protecting themselves, so far as they can, from the hazards to which they are individually exposed?
In the sense above explained, we cannot consent to discard "Chance" altogether, either at the bidding of those who resolve everything into "natural laws," or even in deference to the authority of others who ascribe all events to Divine Providence.